Forgiveness and Justice: Faith Matters Episode 162: Rethinking Forgiveness - A Conversation with Matthew Potts

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4B2txtIaH2InKZCIV7YQn9?si=u7fRVgq8Qv29RWID0DDrAw

38 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, An aeye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not aevil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right bcheek, cturn to him the other also. When a person insults us (slaps you on the right cheek), we want to give them back what they gave to us, plus more. Jesus said we should patiently bear such insults and offenses, and not resist an evil person who insults us this way. Instead, we trust God to defend us. France points out that ancient Jewish writings say that striking someone with the back of the hand – a severe insult – was punishable by a very heavy fine, according to Mishnah BK 8:6.Jesus is saying that the true Christian has learned not to resent and retaliate from severe insults.

This is to fulfill the teaching of our scriptures: How could that be? Jesus is saying if the foundation of the ‘eye to eye’ teaching is our dignity before God, when you come to respond to your enemy the thing that you need to take most seriously is that God loves your enemy as much as God loves you, and God will weep over your enemies as much as God will weep over your eye. If you love God you need to act in a way that honors God’s love for your enemy. That doesn’t mean you don’t feel anger for your enemy, anger is natural, but Jesus is saying show some restraint, because God loves that person. Don’t do what they did to you because God loves that person, it does not mean you let someone repeatedly insult you or put you in harm’s way. 

This is important because our ideas in the west and even why Jesus died on the cross are because of compensatory punishment. That when harm is given, harm must be given in return. We as humans owe God a debt of sin, so the only way is punishment of Jesus on our behalf, because punishment is the only thing that sets the scales even. 

Jesus is pushing us with full faith to justice that isn’t about punishment as much as about firm loving change.



An example: In June 2015, a white supremacist entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and murdered 9 members of the church during a Bible study. During the first court hearing, a number of family members of victims said that they forgave the murderer, Dylann Roof. This act of forgiveness shocked many people. Some people were shocked by witnessing such an act of Christian charity. Others were shocked because they thought expressing forgiveness for such an act, especially so quickly, was wrong, and was only perpetuating the violence on the community under attack.

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